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Jay Cost

This race is just getting started

The only two years where there was not major movement in the Gallup poll of registered voters relative to the final result was 1988 and 2008. Otherwise, we see pretty substantial breaks in one direction or another – in some years, like 1972, 1984, and 1996 the leader has enough of an edge to endure the rise of his opponent. In other years, like 1968, 1976, 1980, 2000 and 2004 we see enough movement that the entire race is turned inside out.

Again, this should make sense in the context of the first chart: When you have upwards of a third of voters making their final decisions this month (or early November), is it any surprise that the polls swing so wildly?

In other words, Obama’s lead of 6 points among Gallup’s registered voters (or his lead of 2.5 points in the recent, reliable likely voter polls) is great to have, but at this point is by no means determinative.

Blowback

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On a liberal site that I frequent, the commenters are thrilled with recent poll results and assume that Obama will coast to an easy victory. I would be absolutely delighted to wake up on November 2nd and sift through their cognitive dissonance.

In other words, Obama’s lead of 6 points among Gallup’s registered voters (or his lead of 2.5 points in the recent, reliable likely voter polls) is great to have, but at this point is by no means determinative.

Gallup should be switching to their Likely Voter model this week. They switched on October 4th in 2010. I believe they switched at the same time (give or take a day or two) in 2008. Maybe today will be that magic day?

I find the activity levels of HotGas trolls to also be a good indicator as to how things are going.

a capella on October 3, 2012 at 12:31 PM

Democrats are so tolerant of Free Speech, y’know!

An elderly California couple has been subjected to violent threats, vandalism and a fake Molotov cocktail because they erected a pro-Mitt Romney sign on their front yard.

Gene Liboff, 78, of Woodland Hills, Calif., told Fox News the latest incident occurred last week when someone left a baby food canister with a wick attached to it – next to the sign. The bottle was filled with liquid.

A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Dept. confirmed to Fox News that the incident occurred. The fire department and bomb squad were summoned – but the device turned out to be a fake. No arrests have been made.

Liboff said their homemade sign has been destroyed six times.

“My wife is a very persistent person,” he told Fox News. “She wasn’t going to give in. She kept resurrecting the sign.”

One day, his wife, Dee, was in the front yard repairing the sign, when she was threatened by a passerby.

“Somebody came by while my wife was fixing up the sign and said, ‘you’re dead,’” he said.

Doctr. FRANKLIN looking towards the Presidents Chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that Painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun. I have said he, often and often in the course of the Session, and the vicisitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting Sun – James Madison, The Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787

Yes, it was also Ben Franklin who– when asked by a woman at the conclusion of the constitutional convention what kind of government the framers had given to the American people– presciently admonished: “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.”

But I’m going with the optimistic Dr. Franklin. Nothing has happened since the beginning of summer to convice me that Obama cannot be defeated. The polls, predictably have begun to tighten, and Jay Cost declares on October 3rd, 5 weeks out, that the race has just begun. Romney has more than a fighting chance to win if we are motivated enough to give him the victory. But we need to stay focused and motivated– and above all we need to vote. And get out the vote to defeat Obama.

In the spirit of Dr. Franklin– “ It is a rising and not a setting Sun”– herewith a musical motivator, first and signature theme of a series of musical sunrises up to election day:

Okay, if you look at the link you’re going to see Pat Boone, so try closing your eyes, just listening, and visualizing something like…

EXT. ELECTION DAY – DAWN

Music 00:00 – 00:31 Faint light in the east. A TRUMPET CALL. Reveille. A Call to Arms. A Call to Battle, echoes across the landscape.

Music 00:34 – 00:50 Dawn. Harp arpeggios signal the brightening sky, and the land begins to stir.

Music 00:50 – 01:30 Sunrise. A melodic line begins in the low winds, rising with the sun, first light spilling down the purple mountain majesties and across the fruited plane. From homes and farms and cities the people are moving, trickling into their polling places. As the music is rising and growing in volume, the trickle of voters becomes a stream, then a swelling current, and finally as the music crescendos in the high brass to a climax, an overwhelming flood voters, and

Music 01:30 – 01:50 Blinding rays of the sun rip through the veil of the heavens. Great crashing chords announce the Obamalypse. Obamageddon. A spectacle of awe and power as the soulless Obama regime collapses in on itself, brought down by the voters. The phony Greek columns topple into a heap of ruin. Think of the end of the poem “Renascence”:

The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.
But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat — the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.
–Edna St. Vincent Millay

Of course, your visualization may vary. Or, you can just watch Pat Boone.